When Alexis Wiggins returned to full-time teaching after having a baby, she took with her an idea from the book "A Path With Heart" by Buddhist Jack Kornfield. The idea was that each day might go better if she viewed everyone she encountered during that day, including any student or parent who seemed to make her teaching life harder, as…

Professional learning communities (PLCs) are an increasingly popular strategy for improving schools. While PLCs routinely implement universal academic screening, they seldom screen for emotional and behavioral problems. This is unfortunate, as the early signs of emotional and behavioral disorders can be identified and interventions developed. The…

The aim of the study was to investigate the relationships between attribution style and social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBDs), and to explore differences in attribution tendencies between adolescents with and without SEBDs. In total, 72 adolescents attending a school in London were recruited; 27 were receiving support for SEBDs…

Children's emotional and behavioural difficulties are the result of multiple individual, social and contextual factors working in concert. The current paper proposes a theoretical framework for interpreting students' emotional and behavioural difficulties in classrooms, by taking into consideration teacher-student interactions, students' social…

This study explored the directionality of the relations between global life satisfaction (LS) and internalizing and externalizing behaviors using a sample of regular education students who were initially enrolled in Grade 7 ("n" = 470). Self-report measures of internalizing and externalizing behaviors and LS were administered on 2…

A structured search and identification of themes within the literature regarding the use of Social Stories to decrease disruptive behaviour in children with autistic spectrum disorders is presented. The examination of seven studies showed that the Social Story intervention was successful for the majority of the participants, although the level of…

This study examines the relation between maternal warmth and the internalizing and externalizing problems of early adolescents, and the potential mediation of this relation by emotional insecurity. The hypotheses for the study derive from Cummings and Davies' theory of emotional security. The current study extends the theory to security processes…

To determine whether children and adolescents (7-17 years old) who had experienced physical, sexual, or both types of abuse reflected distinct profiles of personal resiliency, we administered the "Resiliency Scales for Children and Adolescents" (RSCA) to 250 youth. We performed cluster analyses with T scores for the RSCA Self-Mastery,…

School and district personnel have identified common challenges in implementing individualized, intensive interventions for students with severe, persistent learning and behavioral needs. The National Center on Intensive Intervention has worked with scores of local educators--including district administrators, building principals, special and…

There is a growing body of opinion that we should view autism as fractionable into different, largely independent sets of clinical features. The alternative view is that autism is a coherent syndrome in which principal features of the disorder stand in intimate developmental relationship with each other. Studies of congenitally blind children…

Autism spectrum disorders are defined by difficulties across a range of areas: social and communication difficulties and restricted and repetitive behaviours and interests. It has been suggested that this triad of symptoms cannot be explained by a single cause at the genetic, neural or cognitive level. This article reviews the evidence for a…

The student population across U.S. schools has become increasingly diverse and has presented educators with a number of concerns in assisting students demonstrating challenging behaviors. Educators have historically had difficulties in distinguishing between cultural differences and genuine indicators of emotional and behavioral disorders. It is…

Two prospective studies examined a theoretical model wherein exposure to victimization, resulting from early behavioral risk, heightens children's social alienation and subsequent deviant peer affiliation (DPA). Across Study 1 (298 girls, 287 boys; K-7th grade; 5-12 years) and Study 2 (338 girls, 298 boys; 2nd-6th grade; 8-12 years),…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine whether deficits in executive functioning (EF) in children with cochlear implants (CIs) emerge as early as the preschool years. Method: Two groups of children ages 3 to 6 years participated in this cross-sectional study: 24 preschoolers who had CIs prior to 36 months of age and 21 preschoolers…

Standardized Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) scores provide a measure of autism severity that is less influenced by child characteristics than raw totals (Gotham et al. in "Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders," 39(5), 693-705 2009). However, these scores combine symptoms from the Social Affect (SA) and Restricted…